<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Burden of Ignorance by BunnyBoi1998, Nikkie2571</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27237400">The Burden of Ignorance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunnyBoi1998/pseuds/BunnyBoi1998'>BunnyBoi1998</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikkie2571/pseuds/Nikkie2571'>Nikkie2571</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Creative Writing 1100 assignments [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Gods &amp; Goddesses, Destruction, Fantasy, Gen, Gods, Negligence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:33:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,999</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27237400</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunnyBoi1998/pseuds/BunnyBoi1998, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikkie2571/pseuds/Nikkie2571</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Goddess who answers all is not the Goddess who knows all</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Creative Writing 1100 assignments [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926208</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Burden of Ignorance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is the final draft of my Creative Writing 1100 short story assignment :) I hope you like it :D</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The stars surrounded her, orbs of bright blue swirling light coiled around brilliant and pale yellow spheres. And yet, despite their beauty, they bored her. Her domain was empty of substance except for her and the stars. She had made this place to contain her, away from the things she thought most precious, but it was not enough. There was nothing here to see, and only the pleas of her people to hear. She wanted to explore, to wonder, to feel like her people did. She wanted to truly experience their world. But she could not do it as she was.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anthea, daughter of Malcolm, was born with brilliant white hair and pale pale eyes, unlike anything her parents had ever seen before. In her head rested knowledge far beyond that of any normal girl, of any normal human. In her mind rested the very stars themselves, blooming with beauty and intent. Anthea, daughter of Malcolm, was born an explorer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anthea would climb trees, run through the fields, and always went with her father to the markets in the city. She would sneak off and talk to all the other children and sometimes even the adults. For many long years the calls of her father shouting “Anthea come back here” followed her as she ran off to go find something new to see. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As a child she would join games and play with others, telling stories of make believe and causing ruckus with shouts and screams. As a young teen she would climb buildings and run over the rooftops, finding new ways to explore old places, discovering secrets through windows as she leapt through the air. As an older teen she would sneak into empty houses just to look around, or sometimes not so empty houses, and attended the theater without paying. She watched the stories of the stage unfold before her eyes in wondrous glory and the most rapt of attention. And when finally she was fully grown she set out on her final act of exploration. She left home, and her parents, to wander the world. To find out just how much there was to see.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She started her journey with the one place in the city she had not yet set foot in. The temple of the one Goddess, Shana the overseer. The moment Anthea crossed the threshold into the temple proper, the priests all seemed to perk up, and one of them specifically hurried over to meet her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, look at you,” he nearly cooed, “how blessed you are to resemble the great Goddess!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Anthea said graciously.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And what brings you here?” he asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anthea turned to look at one of the nearby statues of Shana. “Curiosity.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The priest laughed. “Is that not why we are all here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anthea hummed, not really replying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know,” she said, changing the subject, “your statues are wrong.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The priest blinked. “Oh, how so?” he asked, tone strange.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anthea gestured to the largest statue’s face. “Her eyes are too dark, too much black in the pigment; her hair just a touch too long; and you’ve gotten her nose all wrong.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The priest was silent for a moment. “Who are you, young woman?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anthea, daughter of Malcolm,” she said truthfully.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The priest shook his head. “I think, miss Anthea, that you should leave, and leave depicting the Goddess to the people who know her best.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anthea frowned. Why would a priest who worshiped the Goddess that answered all questions refuse her information? Would these priests not value that information above all else? Anthea did not know the answer, and did not have the power to answer. So she left, knowing better than to stay where she wasn’t wanted. It wasn’t until she was walking away though, that she noticed all the guards stationed outside the temple.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Here, Anthea’s journey truly began. She picked a road leading out of the city and started to walk, wandering further than she ever had before. She passed through various villages and towns, asking to stay the night in return for tales of her youth and the city she grew up near. These people, unlike the priests of that city, seemed to value that knowledge, granting her the exchange. Something that pleased Anthea deeply.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then things started to get weird. As she wandered further, houses started to be empty, and then the fields with them. Then an entire village she passed through was burning and destroyed, the small temple to Shana there crumbled to the ground and covered in burning oil. The statue at its center still stood, somehow, covered in scorch marks. Its eyes were pure white and the nose too wide. Anthea spent a long time staring at the burnt rubble, wondering just who had done this, and why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After that, the people she would bump into on the road would start to give her looks, strange glances and betrayed glares that spoke volumes of emotions that Anthea did not understand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Who had hurt these people? Had hurt so many of them? And why? Anthea did not know, and Anthea could not know. For Anthea was mortal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look at you, so blessed to look like the Goddess,” one travelling woman sneered at her in a mocking mirror of the words a priest so long ago had once said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you so blessed when the rest of us aren’t?” the woman continued, and then hurried away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anthea was left only more confused, more lost and forlorn, when the presence of the woman disappeared. So she decided that it was time to change the intent of her wandering, from seeing the world, to understanding it. Anthea decided to go looking for answers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But all that greeted her was destruction and death. Always too late, Anthea arrived to the villages and towns and cities, finding them in ruin and without life. Temples broken and buildings vacant, farms dying and home abandoned. No answers to be found, only the spread of something lacking explanation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, the trickle of people on the road stopped, and the only thing feeding Anthea was the few vegetables and fruits she could gather from empty fields and the various preserves stored in jars in the equally empty houses. Hunger forced rationing, and curiosity forced continuity, each step more feeling like it would lead equally to answers and loss.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then she found it. One town not yet dead or empty, but in the process of dying. Buildings were singed and the small temple cracked, but there were still people, still structures standing, still people working. But all of them looked wary, especially of her, even if some seemed oddly hopeful at the sight of her. Perhaps they thought of her as a sign, as a blessing from the Goddess. Anthea did not know. Anthea did not have the answers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anthea entered the temple, and was brought face to face with her twin in masonry form. Pale pale eyes, just the right shade, stared back at her from a mural on the back wall. She saw no priest in attendance, only a man, maybe middle-aged, with pitch-black hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Excuse me,” she asked, “but who made this mural?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man turned and his eyes widened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s you,” he said, sounding awed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anthea blinked. “Me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man’s face twisted into anger. “Yes, you! You who answered, you who watched, you who left the world and abandoned it! You who has been silent to all prayers for nearly twenty years!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anthea remained calm. “Despite my, apparently blessed, appearance, I am not the Goddess. I am Anthea, daughter of Malcolm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man narrowed his eyes. “Eyes pale like a bed of clouds and hair white as snow, skin like pottery and nose thin but long,” he recited like a poem, voice firm and strong. “That is the image the Goddess gave, and here you stand before me, a perfect replica of what she showed me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shana blinked and recalled. Many people had asked her to describe herself, but only once had someone asked to see her. A child, long ago, small and dark-haired. It was Shana’s job to answer all questions, to fulfill all requests given of her to the best her powers could do, so she beamed an image of herself into his small mind. He’d cried, after, claiming her to be the most pretty thing he’d ever seen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shana sighed. “Okay, let’s say I am the Goddess. Why do you claim I have abandoned the world?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man’s face crumpled, as if anger and sorrow and joy and the most awful pain were all colliding inside of him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You had a duty,” he managed to say in an even tone. “You are the Goddess who answers all, and yet yo-” he hiccuped, eyes starting to grow visibly watery. Shana felt her hands twitch, longing to go over and comfort him, but she longed for answers more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You weren’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>there!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” he screamed, the warble of his voice the definition of upset. “You’re supposed to answer our questions, guide us on the right path, act as mother to all! But you </span>
  <em>
    <span>weren’t there!</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man’s shoulders were shaking, but he stood in place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “A story of destruction. People, at first, thought that if they prayed hard enough you would hear. But you didn’t. So they prayed harder, more often, screaming at the skies for weeks, begging for you to hear. Nothing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tears started to fall down the man’s face. “People started to get desperate, started to get mad. People have arrived here from quite far, escaping the carnage, the destruction. Some worshippers, still holding out hope, starting sacrificing things to you, but those that gave up thought that if you weren’t there, weren’t listening for prayer, perhaps you would hear death.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man scowled at her and Shana nearly took a step back, shocked by the depth of the rage she could see spilling over from the man’s heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“People have pillaged and destroyed in your name, screaming to the heavens for your help, your assistance, pleading for you to stop on both sides. And just the other day, I had to stop a man from sacrificing his own son just to see if that would let him hear your voice again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you know that, oh great Goddess?” he asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shana breathed in deeply and let it out slowly, picking her words carefully.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not the Goddess who knows all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck you!” the man instantly swore. “You’re abs-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not know everything!” Shana screamed. “I only have so many eyes, so many ears! I only watch so much and I only ever go back to things that have passed if I need to, to provide an answer I do not have.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man stared and then nodded, silent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can not know everything,” Shana continued. “That would be too much. I only know what I must. I wanted to know what it was like to be human, to be like my beautiful people, and that meant becoming one. But I had no way to know it would result in this. I knew it would require relieving my duties, but I did not know how much you relied on me. I did not know I would be abandoning you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what will you do now?” the scared little boy in a grown man’s body asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shana sighed. “I think, that even though I could learn more about being like you, that I will have to be satisfied with this. I have a duty to my people, one that I have forsaken, and it is a fault I must fix. I must guide you away from my mistakes, so that hopefully no one makes a mistake like it again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shana smiled at the man. “Thank you, Pontiki, for asking, so long ago. No one else has ever gotten the nose right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man smiled back and then Anthea, daughter of Malcolm, was no more.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>